Its name evokes the bursts of laughter in the boulevard theater. Actress Marthe Mercadier died at the age of 92, her daughter told AFP on Wednesday.
Hospitalized a week ago at the Puteaux palliative care center (Hauts-de-Seine), she “passed away this morning around 5am. She had suffered from Alzheimer’s disease for several years. I accompanied her to the end, ”said Véronique Néry, who was also her press officer.
“Les Saintes Chéries” and “At the theater tonight”
Marthe Mercadier, born in October 1928. She had to face adversity during her childhood. She started to stutter at the age of 6, and then lost the ability to speak. She was later paralyzed for more than two years following an accident. During adolescence, she was part of the resistance. She will testify in 1976 in the documentary Sing under the Occupation! directed by André Halimi.
In 1952, her marriage to actor Gérard Néry propelled her to the front page of the newspapers. From this union, which will last twenty years, will be born Véronique, her only child, in 1961.
Marthe Mercadier began her career on the stage at the end of the 1940s. She continued in the boulevard plays until the beginning of the 2010s. Television contributed to her fame, notably through her role in the series The Holy Darlings broadcast on the first channel of the ORTF between 1965 and 1970 in addition to its performances in the retransmissions ofAt the theater tonight between 1966 and 1980.
In season 1 of “Dance with the stars”
On the cinema side, the bulk of her filmography, rich in nearly forty feature films, focuses on the decade from 1950 to 1960: she shot in twenty-three films during those years.
Very involved in charitable associations, Marthe Mecardier was also appointed, in 1981, by Yvette Roudy, Minister of Women’s Rights at the time, in charge of audiovisual problems. In 2007, she was made Chevalier of the Legion of Honor.
In 2011, she had participated in the first season of Dance with the stars on TF1, allowing it to make itself known by a part of the young public which could not know its great theatrical hours.